here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAfter Biden\u2019s inauguration on January 20, the U.S. government should \u201cseek to join, not supplant\u201d these collective efforts by a range of Western countries, Latin American democracies, and a growing number of Muslim-majority states.<\/p>\n
Biden should also \u201cseek to reframe the U.S. public\u2019s appreciation of human rights so the U.S. commitment becomes entrenched in a way that is not so easily reversed by his successors.\u201d<\/p>\n
China<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nAccording to HRW\u2019s annual World Report 2021, which summarizes last year\u2019s human rights situation in nearly 100 countries and territories worldwide, the Chinese government\u2019s authoritarianism \u201cwas on full display\u201d in 2020.<\/p>\n
Repression deepened across the country, with the government imposing a \u201cdraconian\u201d national-security law in Hong Kong and arbitrarily detaining Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region on the basis of their identity, while others are subjected to \u201cforced labor, mass surveillance, and political indoctrination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nIn Russia, HRW said the authorities used the coronavirus pandemic as a \u201cpretext\u2026to restrict human rights in many areas, and to introduce new restrictions, especially over privacy rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following a \u201ccontroversial\u201d referendum on constitutional changes, a crackdown was launched on dissenting voices, with \u201cnew, politically motivated prosecutions and raids on the homes and offices of political and civic activists and organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Belarus<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nThe situation wasn’t much better in neighboring Belarus, where HRW said thousands were arbitrarily detained and hundreds were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment as strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka faced an unprecedented wave of protests following a contested presidential election in August.<\/p>\n
“In many cases they detained, beat, fined, or deported journalists who covered the protests and stripped them of their accreditation,” HRW said. “They temporarily blocked dozens of websites and, during several days, severely restricted access to the Internet.”<\/p>\n
Ukraine<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nAccording to the watchdog, the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine \u201ccontinued to take a high toll on civilians, from threatening their physical safety to limiting access to food, medicines, adequate housing, and schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
Travel restrictions imposed by Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian authorities in response to the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated hardship for civilians and drove them \u201cdeeper into poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balkans<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nIn the Balkan region, HRW said serious human rights concerns remained in Bosnia-Herzegovina over \u201cethnic divisions, discrimination, and the rights of minorities and asylum seekers,\u201d while \u201cpressure\u201d on media professionals continued.<\/p>\n
There was \u201climited\u201d improvement in protections of human rights in Serbia, where journalists \u201cfaced threats, violence, and intimidation, and those responsible are rarely held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Kosovo, HRW cited continued tensions between ethnic Albanians and Serbs and \u201cthreats and intimidation\u201d against journalists, while prosecutions of crimes against journalists have been \u201cslow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hungary<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nElsewhere in Europe, the government in EU member Hungary continued \u201cits attacks on rule of law and democratic institutions\u201d and \u201cinterfered with independent media and academia, launched an assault on members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, and undermined women\u2019s rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nHRW said Iranian authorities continued to crack down on dissent, including \u201cthrough excessive and lethal force against protesters and reported abuse and torture in detention,\u201d while U.S. sanctions \u201cimpacted Iranians\u2019 access to essential medicines and harmed their right to health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pakistan<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nIn neighboring Pakistan, the government \u201charassed and at times prosecuted human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists for criticizing government officials and policies,\u201d while also cracking down on members and supporters of opposition political parties.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, attacks by Islamist militants targeting law enforcement officials and religious minorities killed dozens of people.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nHRW noted that fighting between Afghan government forces, the Taliban, and other armed groups caused nearly 6,000 civilian casualties in the first nine months of the year.<\/p>\n
The Afghan government \u201cfailed to prosecute senior officials responsible for sexual assault, torture, and killing civilians,\u201d while \u201cthreats to journalists by both the Taliban and government officials continued.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Caucasus<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nIn the South Caucasus, six weeks of fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region dominated events in both Azerbaijan and Armenia.<\/p>\n
HRW said all parties to the conflict committed violations of international humanitarian law, including by using banned cluster munitions.<\/p>\n
Central Asia<\/big><\/strong><\/p>\nIn Central Asia, critics of the Kazakh government faced \u201charassment and prosecution, and free speech was suppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyrgyz authorities \u201cmisused\u201d lockdown measures imposed in response to the coronavirus epidemic to \u201cobstruct the work of journalists and lawyers,\u201d and parliament \u201cadvanced several problematic draft laws including an overly broad law penalizing manipulation of information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tajik authorities \u201ccontinued to jail government critics, including opposition activists and journalists, for lengthy prison terms on politically motivated grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government also \u201cseverely\u201d restricted freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion, including through heavy censorship of the Internet.<\/p>\n
Uzbekistan\u2019s political system remained \u201clargely authoritarian\u201d with thousands of people — mainly peaceful religious believers — being kept behind bars on false charges.<\/p>\n
Citing reports of torture and ill-treatment in prisons, HRW said journalists and activists were persecuted, independent rights groups were denied registration, and forced labor was not eliminated.<\/p>\n
Turkmenistan experienced \u201ccascading social and economic crises as the government recklessly denied and mismanaged\u201d the COVID-19 epidemic in the country, leading to \u201csevere shortages\u201d of affordable food.<\/p>\n\n
This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling on President-elect Joe Biden to reinforce the commitment of the United States to human rights after four years of shirking it during\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28,78,333,25,332,555,337,4,23,24,75,163,467,376,211,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7504,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503\/revisions\/7504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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